I'm all for flirting, but hands off my behind!

Tactile: Jeremy Irons says patting a woman's bottom is friendly, but would he get away with it if he was not a Hollywood star?

Jeremy Irons says any woman worth her salt can cope with a pat on the bottom, adding: ‘It’s communication. Can’t we be friendly?’

Most women of my generation will have experienced the Jeremy Irons form of friendliness to a greater or lesser degree. What it usually translates to is a sense of entitlement so great that it simply never occurs to such men that their so-called ‘friendly communication’ is uninvited and unwanted.

My own came when a married boss pawed my bottom before pinning me against a filing cabinet when we were alone in the office one afternoon.

‘Shall I just nip down to the car?’ he murmured into my ear. ‘I’ve a bottle of Pomagne in the boot.’

As seductions go, it was more Benny Hill than Jeremy Irons. I saw no need to report it and thus wreck his career, but merely informed him in no uncertain terms that his advances were unwelcome.

Does this make me a woman worth my salt? I don’t know. I only know that most women have a fierce objection to their bottom being patted by anyone other than their partner.

That doesn’t mean we’re all hatchet-faced miseries with no sense of humour. Indeed, a little flirtation is a wonderful thing. It punctuates the dreariness of everyday routine and makes both parties feel better. The issue is of where to draw the line.

It ought not to be difficult. In France, flirting is a form of politeness. No French woman is offended by being wolf-whistled at or openly admired.

French men, meanwhile, feel it is merely gallant to express their admiration — indeed, they think it would be rude not to.

There’s a world of difference between this formalised flirtation and the crass vulgarities of too many of their British counterparts. Jeremy Irons excuses his own tendency to grope women with the lame line that ‘I’ve always been very tactile’. He wouldn’t get away with it were he not a Hollywood star, but I’m with him when he says political correctness has gone too far.

Every woman needs to be able to deal with unwanted advances, and the best way is with a biting quip, not a complaint of sexual harassment. A swift riposte, an air of exaggerated boredom and, if necessary, a firm swipe to wandering hands are enough to ward off most advances.

Contrary to what feminists used to say, not all men are rapists. And while my generation learned from an early age that inappropriate advances were part of office life, today’s young men are far less likely to behave similarly. They’ve grown up with women who simply wouldn’t countenance an unwanted advance — and so, by and large, they don’t even try.

Indeed, what Jeremy Irons may come to realise is that by proudly outing himself as a bottom-patter, he has revealed himself to be something even more embarrassing: a dirty old man.

Tana Ramsay has sided with her celebrity chef husband against her own father after discovering from Gordon that her father was a serial womaniser with a second secret family. However, Gordon had kept that secret from her for at least a year, and sacked her father — who’d been his business partner for 12 years — only after accusing him of plundering his restaurant empire of £1.4 million. Which looks to me as though he very much puts business before his wife.

Anarchists should be apprentices

We’re told the youths rampaging through our streets are doing so because they’re impoverished and angry.

Well, I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe it. According to government figures, Tottenham has one of the worst employment rates in the country, with 54 people for every job. Yet in ten minutes on the internet I managed to sign up to the National Apprenticeships Scheme, where I discovered that there are currently 2,228 vacancies in London.

Rampage: We are told that youths roaming the streets are doing so because they are angry at unemployment, but a quick looks at an apprenticeship website yields 2,228 vacancies in London

The first one I clicked on was for a body and paint apprentice technician at a garage in Edmonton — just a couple of miles from Tottenham. The apprentice would be trained by the garage for three years, attending college four times a year to achieve a Technical Certificate in NVQ level 2 or 3, on a salary of £100 a week.

Yes, it’s less than the minimum wage. But for a 16-year-old school-leaver, it’s a rung on the ladder to a trade and a better future. Nationwide, I found there are 10,253 apprenticeship vacancies. Labour MPs have lined up to excuse the anarchy as the only path left to disaffected youths who have no hope and no jobs. As a society, we have indeed failed these young people, but not in the way many Left-wingers naively believe.

We’ve failed them by providing a benefits system that often makes it more lucrative not to work and an education system which despises competition. As a result, they’ve grown up with a sense of entitlement and no idea that hard work brings not just advancement, but also the pleasure of achievement.

Clint Eastwood has eight children by six different women. He left his first wife when his eldest daughter was six. She’s now 39 and says she won’t marry or have children because she blamed herself for her parents’ divorce, and wouldn’t want to risk inflicting similar anguish on a child of her own. He may be one of our greatest actors, but what a devastating indictment — and what a terrible legacy.

Has Nancy Dell'Olio's decision to put her man first led to her reported break-up

Why Nancy's left stranded alone

According to Nancy Dell’Olio — pictured looking sensational in an itsy-bitsy bikini in Sardinia at the weekend — theatre director Trevor Nunn found her ‘the most intelligent person he’s ever met’. Be that as it may, it seems that Trevor — like her previous lover, Sven-Goran Eriksson — has decided to move on, leaving Nancy to holiday alone.

Why? After all, this is a woman who says she always puts her man first, showering him with attention and always looking fabulous. ‘I would describe myself much more as a geisha than the one wearing the trousers,’ she said after Sven dumped her for Ulrika. ‘My priority is to please my man.’ Proving she’s not so intelligent after all.

Successful, powerful men like Sven and Trevor want a woman who’s a bit of a challenge, who demands that they please her. A geisha’s simply a glamorous doormat — and there’s nothing clever about that.

Terry Wogan says it was entirely his decision to give up his hugely popular Radio 2 breakfast show last year, as his philosophy is to go well before you are in danger of being pushed. It’s an incredibly difficult feat to pull off, and is the mark of someone who is very secure and not overly burdened by ego. Bruce Forsyth should take note.

The Duchess, the Dame and an eye-popping accusation

Dame Vivienne Westwood, who dismissed Kate Middleton some months ago as being too unstylish to be able to carry off one of her dresses at her wedding, now says she thinks the Duchess has a problem with her eye make-up, which ‘makes her look hard’. This is true.

Raising eyebrows: Dame Vivienne Westwood has claimed Kate Middleton's eye make-up 'makes her look hard', but it is unlikely she will take much notice

However, as Dame Vivienne’s own idea of make-up is to line both her eyes and her forehead with vermilion crayon, I don’t suppose Kate will be inclined to take too much notice.

The heartbreaking story of Horatio Chapple, killed by a polar bear while on an adventure holiday, makes us want to lock up our teenage children and never let them out of our sight. But as the events of the past few days have shown, danger can erupt when we least expect it. And as the behaviour of Horatio’s team-mate Patrick Flinders and team leader Michael Reid also shows, not to mention the growing numbers who have stood up to the looters this week, terrible events also bring out true heroism.

The story of Edward and Mrs Simpson is often held up as one of the greatest love stories ever. Now we learn from Anne Sebba’s riveting new book, serialised in the Mail, that Wallis never wanted to marry mad, suicidal Edward, and yearned to be reunited with her kindly second husband, Ernest Simpson. She once said that you can never be too rich or too thin. But neither can have been compensation for her utterly miserable life. She’s an early version of a WAG and all the proof any socially ambitious girl today could ever need that you should be careful what you wish for.

Stuck in the middle

The midriff is back, we’re told. Oh no it’s not — or at least, not among the women I know. Once you’ve had children, a flat stomach becomes a memory as distant as a holiday with time to read lots of books, or a Sunday lie-in. You can eat no cake for a year, but still find it impossible to shift the muffin-top that clings stubbornly to your waist. There are two solutions to the middle-aged mum’s midriff fashion dilem-ma. One is the Gwyneth Paltrow option: a personal trainer for two hours a day, every day for the rest of your life. And the other? Wear a longer top.